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Free macOS System Fixer Besides Onyx & Disk Utility?

Alvin777

Alvin777

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 31, 2003
505
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Hello Apple friends.

Besides Disk Utility and Onyx (not CleanMyMac trial which I've used already and the trial is not expired), are there any totally free macOS utility that fixes and cleans the system in macOS? If you could recommend more, that'd be great.

I've been restoring to Time Machine after every upgrade for almost 10 years now, I don't know how the files look like, there must be some corrupt files there and "tangled" mess. I wish I could fresh install and then not use Time Machine to bring so many files and documents but Time Machine is the only one that's fast (coz' there can't be any downtime as much as possible).

Thank you. May 2023 be ours for the taking by God's grace.
 
You don't say what Mac you are using, but in any case you need to distinguish between Directory repair utilities and clean up utilities which offer a variety of maintenance tasks.

The main tools which can repair the Directory are Disk Utility First Aid, and third party ones Disk Warrior, TechTool, Drive Genius etc.

Apple introduced the APFS file system some years ago, but have never released the details needed for third party utilities to repair APFS directories. Disk Warrior can still only repair old HFS+ disks. TechTool and Drive Genius claim APFS Directory repair capability but use the same fsck routine used by Disk Utility, though they don't advertise this fact. I have stopped buying these third party apps now that all my drives are APFS. I just use Disk Utility First Aid.

My own opinion is that people worry too much about "cruft" and do fresh installs unnecessarily. But you will find plenty of people who like to get rid of it. I do use a very popular simple free uninstaller AppCleaner to more completely uninstall apps. I dont use any general cleaners. Common advice is that they can do more harm than good, and I had problems the only time I tried one, many years ago.
 
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Mike Boreham said:
You don't say what Mac you are using, but in any case you need to distinguish between Directory repair utilities and clean up utilities which offer a variety of maintenance tasks.

The main tools which can repair the Directory are Disk Utility First Aid, and third party ones Disk Warrior, TechTool, Drive Genius etc.

Apple introduced the APFS file system some years ago, but have never released the details needed for third party utilities to repair APFS directories. Disk Warrior can still only repair old HFS+ disks. TechTool and Drive Genius claim APFS Directory repair capability but use the same fsck routine used by Disk Utility, though they don't advertise this fact. I have stopped buying these third party apps now that all my drives are APFS. I just use Disk Utility First Aid.

My own opinion is that people worry too much about "cruft" and do fresh installs unnecessarily. But you will find plenty of people who like to get rid of it. I do use a very popular simple free uninstaller AppCleaner to more completely uninstall apps. I dont use any general cleaners. Common advice is that they can do more harm than good, and I had problems the only time I tried one, many years ago.
Click to expand...
Hi, thanks for the reply. It's a Late 2015 iMac w/ MX395 GPU and 32GB RAM. I'm actually trying to fix permanently (it's intermittent problem) the Magic Mouse 2, the Bluetooth essentially and the external disk and image mounting of Monterey. On Monterey w/ the latest version, sometimes the Magic Mouse and keyboard after boot-up (after the icons on the desktop has shown up and Dock and menu's loaded up), sometimes the scroll is not working, sometimes the left click isn't work, the external drives (USB, SSD, my Time Machine and a flashdrive) and image (like .dmg) won't mount (it can't be seen Disk Utility or Terminal using Diskutil list but the System Preference USB tab can see them).

I've done the Disk Utility repair in Safe Mode too, the SMC and PRAM reset, reset of Bluetooth and USB via Terminal.

But if I boot on the probably the most stable macOS, High Sierra, everything is fine. I wonder what's happening to the Bluetooth and USB external drivers maybe?

I also checked the hardware Diagnostic already, it'd fine, it works on Sierra and on other computers, it mounts.

I currently use the app FastDMG to mount images like .dmg but the external drives are more difficult.

Any permanent fix? Which of the apps mentioned would be best for these two issues or any app fixer for this or any Terminal command that might fix it permanently? They're all formatted in AFPS.

Thank you.
 
Alvin777 said:
Hi, thanks for the reply. It's a Late 2015 iMac w/ MX395 GPU and 32GB RAM. I'm actually trying to fix permanently (it's intermittent problem) the Magic Mouse 2, the Bluetooth essentially and the external disk and image mounting of Monterey. On Monterey w/ the latest version, sometimes the Magic Mouse and keyboard after boot-up (after the icons on the desktop has shown up and Dock and menu's loaded up), sometimes the scroll is not working, sometimes the left click isn't work, the external drives (USB, SSD, my Time Machine and a flashdrive) and image (like .dmg) won't mount (it can't be seen Disk Utility or Terminal using Diskutil list but the System Preference USB tab can see them).

I've done the Disk Utility repair in Safe Mode too, the SMC and PRAM reset, reset of Bluetooth and USB via Terminal.

But if I boot on the probably the most stable macOS, High Sierra, everything is fine. I wonder what's happening to the Bluetooth and USB external drivers maybe?

I also checked the hardware Diagnostic already, it'd fine, it works on Sierra and on other computers, it mounts.

I currently use the app FastDMG to mount images like .dmg but the external drives are more difficult.

Any permanent fix? Which of the apps mentioned would be best for these two issues or any app fixer for this or any Terminal command that might fix it permanently? They're all formatted in AFPS.

Thank you.
Click to expand...

you could try resetting the Bluetooth module

https://cleanerone.trendmicro.com/blog/how-to-reset-bluetooth-on-a-mac/
 
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Alvin777 said:
Thanks, any reset for the USB ports via Terminal? Bluetooth and Magic Mouse seem fine after an SMC reset but I wonder for how long (on macOS Monterey, sadly the buggiest macOS ever released).
Click to expand...

Not that I know of, but in my experience when a USB port has misbehaved a reboot has always reset it.
 
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Alvin777 said:
Thanks, any reset for the USB ports via Terminal?
Click to expand...
I'm surprised no one answered this.

Reset the NVRAM. This rebuilds your ports. Note, this works for Intel and older PPC Macs only. If your ports collapse on Apple Silicon, call Apple Support.

https://www.macworld.com/article/224955/how-to-reset-a-macs-nvram-pram-and-smc.html

Here's how to do it in Termminal:

  1. Type: sudo nvram -c and hit the Enter key.
  2. Enter your admin password when asked.
  3. Type: sudo shutdown -r now and hit the Enter key again. Then, wait for your Mac to restart.
I once had to do this four times in a row with Apple Support on the phone before my FireWire and USB ports came back to life (had to use a BT keyboard). The problem was caused by plugging my FW interface into an FW hub.
 
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